More evidence that Star Trek is visionary - warp drive may be possible

[Clash City Rocker]

Technology that was correctly predicted by Star Trek...

Automatic sliding doors. On the set of the original Star Trek, there were guys you didn’t see physically pulling the doors open. The Star Trek blooper reels included several shots of cast members walking into doors that didn’t open in time.

Cell phones. The prototype for the first wireless phone came out 8 years after we saw Kirk use a communicator. The flip phone was directly inspired by the communicators in the original series.

Bluetooth earpieces. The first wireless earpiece was in Uhura’s ear.

Flat screen monitors and TVs. In 1966, most TVs were giant boxes. Many were still black and white.

Voice assistants. We alert them now by saying “Alexa”, “Siri”, “Hey, Google”, etc. On the Enterprise, they just said “Computer”.

Universal translators. Although they haven’t figured out how to translate languages that we’ve never heard before. I never figured out how they did that on the show.

Tablet computers. Kirk and Uhura would occasionally write on bulky tablets. The Next Generation brought with it slimmed-down devices that more closely resembled iPads.

VR. Holograms don’t yet look as good as the those on the DS9 holodeck, but VR goggles are getting pretty good.

3D printers. That’s basically what the replicators were. At the time, replicating food seemed like a stretch to me, but now they can actually make food with 3D printers.

Tractor beams. Scientists at NYU have developed devices that can push, pull or hold matter, which they actually refer to as tractor beams, in honor of Star Trek.

Antimatter. Scientists had created antimatter when the show debuted, but it has only been about a decade since it could be captured and stored. Until then, the notion of a matter/antimatter power source was a pipe dream. It may be a long time before it happens, but that’s what I would have said about many things on this list a few years ago.

So, if that’s not enough, now this comes up...

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35718463/scientists-say-physical-warp-drive-is-possible/

[Martin68]

1. Sounds like pipe dream to me. According to the article, "An Alcubierre drive would expend a

tremendous amount of energy—likely more than what’s available within the universe—to contract and twist space-time in front of it and create a bubble." Not bloody likely that we should be able to accomplish that. Science fiction usually depended on anomalies in space time - so called space warps - that would provide a shortcut for travel at light year distances. This seems to depend on a drive that actually creates such "floating bubbles in space," or space/time warps.

Even the article admits "a physical drive may not be a reality today, tomorrow, or even a century from now." In terms of scientific development, that's an aeon. Which means in 10 or 20 years we might learn that it's an impossibility once we know more physics. I think the concept of "folds" or "warps" in the space-time continuum offers more hope for faster-than-light travel.

[qazplm135]

6. it's highly unlikely but no not a pipe dream

they've shaved down the energy required to the total energy in something the size of say a school bus. Still way more than we can generate right now, but it's within the realm of what we could generate in the not too distant future.

It's still not clear that you don't need negative energy to make it work, and if you do, it probably is a pipe dream...but if it turns out you don't? Then it really is just a matter of power generation using normal matter and energy. And if that's true, then it's basic inevitable...albeit, it will take centuries to figure out that power generation, how to safely build such a ship, transport humans in it, etc.

But if you don't need negative energy or matter? It's just a matter of time really. And I'm confused because the energy required to fold or warp space is at LEAST as high as the energy to move a bubble of spacetime. If you are talking wormholes, we don't have evidence they exist as more than mathematical theory, and even then you again need negative matter/energy to hold open the mouth of the wormhole and let normal matter pass through it, and I'd think again the power required to open or create a wormhole is at least as much as to create a warp bubble.

[Martin68]

10. Most fiction about space warps or wormholes assumed they were random anomalies in the fabric of

the "space-time continuum." I assumed one had to locate one first, and then some very brave person would have to try it out to see where it ended up. With no guarantee there would be a way back. My assumption is that over enough time enough such anomalies would be mapped out and they would become a convenient transportation system.

[Tikki]

2. Mr. Cochrane...Is that you?

Pretty much everything is ...Just a Matter of Time.


Tikki

[Hassin Bin Sober]

3. I was promised a flying car.

Is it too much to ask?

Actually I think fly by wire drone tech will be the breakthrough

[byronius]

4. Gene Roddenberry is as close to a modern savior as we'll ever get.

Perhaps not the nicest fellow, stories considered. But the dude wrote and filmed a vision of a future that many generations consider the obvious blueprint for advanced human culture. I wish I lived in it.

It would be nice if we didn't have to go through the Eugenics Wars to get there.

Also -- thanks, Lucille Ball.

[Dave Starsky]

7. I don't know if I'd go that far.

He was a TV writer and producer, not someone who cured disease or ended poverty or hunger.

A lot of Roddenberry's "predictions" were magical solutions to the problems of producing a weekly TV drama. Obviously, you couldn't follow a crew's adventures if it took them literal centuries to get from star to star, hence the idea of "warp drive". The transporter was invented strictly because NBC was too cheap to fund the special effects for a spaceship landing every week. Dr. McCoy's handheld medical scanners were salt shakers someone picked up at a garage sale.

[byronius]

8. I'll stick with 'ol Clash City Rocker up top.

That show, cheap as it may be, shaped my life. And many others, some with better tech skills than me. I think it's the Bomb.

I suppose we shall see -- tune in a couple of hundred years down the road.

Wait! It's Ricardo Montalban! Now with Super Strength!

And here come the Gorn, right on schedule.

We shall see.

[FoxNewsSucks]

5. Where the f*** is my jetpack???

[Buckeye_Democrat]

9. So when can I finally be a space-traveling head?!

My brother who grew up in the 50's told me that he saw an animated science fiction story about such a future for humanity, and how it disturbed him as a kid. Body-less heads in small capsules.